Sprint unlocks Global Wireline Business Unit to target enterprise market, though tasked with ‘full profit-and-loss responsibility’
Sprint may be most known as the domestic market’s former No. 3 wireless carrier, but it also has a wireline network that has garnered accolades from industry veterans and generated $2.4 billion in revenues for fiscal 2015. Looking to highlight those capabilities, Sprint created its Global Wireline Business Unit targeting the enterprise market.
The carrier said the division will have “full profit-and-loss responsibility, including strategy, sales, marketing, product management, solutions engineering and operations.” The division is to be led by Mike Fitz, who previously served as VP of Sprint’s Solutions Engineering department.
Division assets include global MPLS and dedicated Internet access with service in more than 155 countries; global SIP trunking and SIP toll free voice services; a unified communications suite, including Sprint’s Workplace-as-a-Service platform; managed network and security solutions; web-based network management tools; and wireless and wireline access options. The wireless connection includes a partnership with Sprint wireless sales representatives to offer an integrated solution, which the carrier said is used by a majority of its largest customers.
Sprint noted the all-IP wireline assets are a “vital core business platform that is the backbone for both wireless and wireline traffic,” and “provides the foundation for converged and cloud services.”
Jim Patterson, CEO of Patterson Advisory Group, noted in a recent “Reality Check” column Sprint should look to sell off its Internet backbone as part of an overall plan to generate cash and refocus its efforts on the mobile space.
“While [Sprint] continue[s] to report wireline division earnings on a separate basis, you would be hard pressed to find a wireline organizational chart in Overland Park, Kansas,” Patterson wrote. “Sprint has a world-class IP backbone, which is being constrained by shrinking capital budgets. … While its role in the Internet community is not what it was a decade or two ago, Sprint is still viewed as a legitimate and independent authority on routing, address management and other critical infrastructure topics. Others need Sprint’s capabilities and would pay for their embedded base. Sell it now, before it is too late.”
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